Mahjong Terms: A Glossary for New Players

Why a glossary is necessary

Mahjong has been played in Chinese, Japanese, English and half a dozen other languages for a century, and the vocabulary reflects it. The same action is a chi in Japanese, a chow in English, and 吃 in Chinese. The same hand shape is a pung, a pon, and 碰. A single rulebook that mixes all three is unreadable.

This glossary sets one spelling per term and uses it consistently across the site. Where a Japanese term has no clean English equivalent, the Japanese term stays.

The four actions

Term	Also written	Meaning
Chow	Chi, 吃	Claiming a discard to complete a run of three. Not allowed in American mahjong; limited to once per hand in British play.
Pung	Pon, 碰	Claiming a discard to complete three identical tiles.
Kong	Kan, 杠	Four identical tiles. Counts as one set; a replacement tile is drawn.
Win	Hu, ron, tsumo, 和	Completing a legal hand. On a discard, one player pays; on a self-draw, all three do.

Tiles and structure

Term	Meaning
Set	One complete run, pung or kong. A standard hand has four, plus a pair.
Pair	Two identical tiles, used as the eyes of the hand.
Run	Three consecutive tiles in one suit, such as 4-5-6.
Terminals	The 1 and 9 of each suit.
Honours	Winds and dragons together.
Winds	East, south, west, north.
Dragons	Red, green and white. Also called the three dragons.
Flowers	Eight optional tiles. Worth 1 fan each in Chinese Official, but never counted toward the minimum.
Wall	The face-down supply of tiles, built into four sides before play.
Dead wall	A reserved block of 14 tiles in Japanese play, holding the dora indicators and supplying kong replacements.
Kong box	The British equivalent: tiles reserved at the end of the wall for kong replacements.
River	Each player's line of discarded tiles.

Hands and value

Term	Meaning
Fan	The Chinese scoring unit for named patterns. Chinese Official needs 8.
Han	The Japanese version of fan. Dora adds han but is not a yaku.
Fu	The Japanese structural score: pungs, wait shape, closed bonus.
Tai	The Taiwanese unit, with a 5-tai minimum.
Yaku	A named Japanese pattern. At least one is required to win.
Yakuhai	A pung of a dragon, seat wind or round wind.
Dora	The tile after the flipped indicator. One han per copy.
Ura dora	Dora revealed under the indicator. Only counts for a riichi hand.
Mangan	The first Japanese score tier, reached at five han.
Yakuman	The top Japanese tier. No other yaku are added to it.
False win	A declared win that fails the minimum. Penalised in tournament play.
Deal in	To discard the tile an opponent needed, and pay for their win.

Japanese-only terms

Term	Meaning
Riichi	A declaration made while closed and one tile from winning. Worth 1 han and a deposit of 1,000 points.
Furiten	Being one tile from winning but unable to win on a discard, usually because you discarded that tile yourself.
Tenpai	The state of being one tile from a complete hand.
Shanten	The number of tiles still needed before reaching tenpai. One-shanten means one tile from tenpai, two from winning.
Suji	The pattern that a player who has discarded a 4 cannot be waiting on a two-sided 1-4 or 4-7. A partial safety signal only.
Kabe	All four copies of a tile visible, which kills the runs that need it.
Kita	In three-player play, a north tile set aside as a kong.
Tsumo	Winning on a self-drawn tile.
Ron	Winning on another player's discard.

Regional and platform terms

Term	Meaning
Joker	A wild tile in American mahjong. Only substitutes inside a group of three or more identical tiles.
Charleston	The compulsory three-pass tile exchange that opens an American hand.
The card	The annual list of legal American hands. A pattern not on the card is not a win.
Ready	A British pre-declaration of a wait, doubling the score and freezing the hand.
Limit	In British club play, a per-hand score cap. Not the same as a tournament rating score.
Blood battle	The Sichuan rule that keeps the hand going after a win until three players have won.
Void suit	Sichuan requirement to discard all tiles of one suit before you can win.
Chicken hand	A hand with no scoring pattern. In Chinese Official it is below the minimum unless the table allows it.

Terms that look similar and are not

Pung and kong are both identical tiles; a kong has four and needs a replacement draw.
Chow and run are the same shape, but a chow is the action of claiming one from a discard.
Fan and han are the same idea in different rule sets; the thresholds and add-ons differ.
Dora and yaku are not interchangeable: dora adds value, yaku makes the hand legal.
Dead wall and kong box are both reserved tiles, but they belong to different rule sets.

Quick answers

What is the difference between a pung and a chow?

A pung is three identical tiles; a chow is three consecutive tiles in one suit. Both are sets, but only the chow depends on the suit's numbering.

Is han the same as fan?

They measure the same thing in different rule sets. Chinese Official uses fan with an 8-fan minimum; riichi uses han, where dora adds value but does not make a hand legal.

What does furiten mean in plain English?

"One tile from winning, but not allowed to win on a discard." It is a Japanese rule with no equivalent in Chinese styles.

Why do some terms stay in Japanese?

Because they have no settled English equivalent. Riichi, furiten and suji describe mechanics that exist only in the Japanese rule set.

At a glance